How have label chasers affected the hobby

[october]

Delicatessen,

 

YOU SUCK !!!!

 

KK

You swallow

 

[krazykat-migration]

Delicatessen,

 

YOU SUCK !!!!

 

KK

You swallow

 

Axe,

 

Grow up.

 

KK

[goldust40]

 

Axe,

 

Grow up.

 

KK

 

Delicatessen, YOU SUCK !!!! KK

 

Hello Mr. Pot, I'd like to formally introduce you to Mr. Kettle. Apparently Mr. Kettle has delusions of maturity and social skills. Feel free to ensure that he is put right on this matter.

[FlyingDonut]

Now, before FlyingDonut jumps on my case, I am mostly talking about HG and super HG slabbed books here, from all eras. But, even the lower graded stuff will be affected by the factors that I'm mentioning; those prices will fall too, but nowhere near the amount that the slabs with huge speculative premiums will.

 

No jumping here. I got out of high grade slabs in May. I think the market is just about to disintegrate at the very high end. I might be wrong, but I'll happily take my 1000% profit on my books and go home.

[Aman619]

disintegrate? whoa, harsh, dude!

[sfilosa]

No jumping here. I got out of high grade slabs in May. I think the market is just about to disintegrate at the very high end. I might be wrong, but I'll happily take my 1000% profit on my books and go home.

 

 

You might be correct. At this time, I haven't seen a disinitergration of the market and to be honest, I'm not sure it will happen like that. More likely is a small correction and an extended period of stagnation. Siimilar to what has happened for many ASM prices since the first movie came out.

 

The main difference between collectibles and say the stock market is that SUPPLY is not INCREASING at a rapid rate. Those issues where the supply is increasing (i.e. maybe BA and easily many Moderns) would be the most likely to drop considerably.

[drbanner]

I seriously doubt there will be any "disintegration" of high grade slab prices anytime soon, but the next 6 months will certainly be telling as JP appears to be leaving the par-tay and a whole lot of nice SA books have hit the market this year. A whole lot of those SA books are also setting record prices - and I'm talking about post-1965 9.4's and 9.6's, not super-scarce pre-1963 early Marvels. And we've all seen what's happened to late silver and bronze age DC's this year - they've gone through the roof compared to 02/03/04.

 

Concerning bulls and bears, we all know that JC predicted the great comic crash of 2004 and that never happened, and three years ago Gene was telling us all that the great fear was deflation, and that that surely doesn't appear to be happening either. I'm glad to see the bears have tempered their statements and are now leaving them open-ended, but anyone who was participating in these boards in 2002 knows that at that time, according to the bears, TGC was simply at matter of (a finite) time... here's a nearly 3-year old thread with some of these views expressed.

[Norrin_Radd]

Dang you, Norrin_Radd, you made me write TWO crash posts this year.

 

[sfilosa]

The statement that I like the most is where Gene states that the CGC market is not very liquid like the R/E Market.

 

I consider the CGC market VERY LIQUID. If need be, I can move a book in a few hours, get paid through PayPal, and most likely only sell slightly below FMV. Obviously, if I want Top Dollar or even the average of GPA, it might take a little while.

 

And if I had a large CGC collection of say GA to BA books in High Grade, I could probably call a dealer and get 75-80% of FMV immediately. That WOULD NEVER happen with RAW books unless the dealer saw them at a show, and felt VERY comfortable that the books were not restored.

[krazykat-migration]

The statement that I like the most is where Gene states that the CGC market is no very liquid like the R/E Market.

 

I consider the CGC market VERY LIQUID. If need be, I can move a book in a few hours, get paid through PayPal, and most likely only sell slightly below FMV. Obviously, if I want Top Dollar or even the average of GPA, it might take a little while.

 

And if I had a large CGC collection of say GA to BA books in High Grade, I could probably call a dealer and get 75-80% of FMV immediately. That WOULD NEVER happen with RAW books unless the dealer saw them at a show, and felt VERY comfortable that the books were not restored.

 

Agreed. Truly ridiculous statement by Delicatessen.

 

However, is it really a surprise that his analysis is so off ? The guy is a Major League Blow Hard who tries passing off his un-reasoned conclusions as meaningful.

[delekkerste]

The statement that I like the most is where Gene states that the CGC market is no very liquid like the R/E Market.

 

I consider the CGC market VERY LIQUID. If need be, I can move a book in a few hours, get paid through PayPal, and most likely only sell slightly below FMV. Obviously, if I want Top Dollar or even the average of GPA, it might take a little while.

 

And if I had a large CGC collection of say GA to BA books in High Grade, I could probably call a dealer and get 75-80% of FMV immediately. That WOULD NEVER happen with RAW books unless the dealer saw them at a show, and felt VERY comfortable that the books were not restored.

 

For the record, I didn't say that the CGC market is not very liquid like real estate. I said there is not a lot of liquidity at the high end, and we have seen that borne out with JP's recent travails, along with Italian-Treasure and others who bought at nosebleed levels and then tried to exit in a relatively short timeframe.

 

The CGC market is liquid for a good number of popular and sought after books, but not for all books. Furthermore, that liquidity can ebb very quickly. If you're the only one selling a hot book in a good market, you can get out at a good price. But, let's say a couple of others have sold recently and those buyers are now out of the market. You may not find that book so liquid. Or, let's say you need to raise $5K in cash fast. In a good market, you can do this pretty easily. But what if you need to raise $50K or $100K fast? Unless you have the right books that people with money are looking for at that particular time, chances are you'll have to take a haircut to sell, even in a good market.

 

As long as the market stays up, those are not overly worrisome concerns. However, just wait until you see how quickly the psychology of buyers and sellers changes in a down market. You'll see those oceans of liquidity that you think are out there now dry up to puddle depth. If prices are stagnating or going down, flippers, speculators, investors, overextended collectors, profit-flush collectors, etc. will all be less inclined to buy. Meanwhile, sellers will keep clinging to the fantasy that they can get those top-tick prices even after the market has turned. It's not going to look anything like what's out there now.

 

By the way, I don't consider getting out at 75% of FMV to be a good argument for CGC market liquidity.

[delekkerste]

three years ago Gene was telling us all that the great fear was deflation, and that that surely doesn't appear to be happening either.

 

Uh, don't you remember the great deflation scare circa 2002, with Fed Governor Ben Bernanke (Greenspan's probable successor) talking about dumping money from black helicopters if need be? If the Fed hadn't engineered this housing bubble then, we would surely have descended into the depths of deflation 3 years ago (as it stands, many sectors of the economy have experienced deflation - autos and clothing come to mind - while real income growth has been negative since 2000). All it's done is pushed the timeline back and taken asset prices of all kinds (including art, comics and other collectibles) to even more ludicrous heights from which to plunge to even lower depths. When the overall credit/debt/asset bubble eventually bursts, as I am metaphysically certain it will, I'm quite sure that people won't be taking refuge in the comic book market.

 

I don't follow CGC trends like I used to, but from what I can tell and have learned from talking to slab collectors, there has already been a big deflation of prices for a good number of books since 2001-2002. Copper and Modern books, for example, in nearly all grades, non-key Bronze and 9.4 Bronze (9.6 is the new 9.4), very common books from SA to Modern, the JIM bubble as I mentioned, certain Movie Hype books, etc. One prominent collector I spoke to recently said, "Crash? It's not coming, it's already started. Prices have been stagnating on a lot of [previously hot] books for many months now."

 

Like I said, every bubble takes prices back below where they started. This one, regardless of how high we go or the time that it takes to go up or down, will prove to be no different. I find it more than a little amusing that every single collector on this Board, to a man, believes that they will be able to spot a turn in the market (if it ever comes, because apparently comic prices only go up) and get out before all the other poor schmucks (who also believe they will be able to get out, which makes it so funny). Were you guys all raised in Lake Wobegon, where all the children are "above average"?

[Norrin_Radd]

If the Fed hadn't engineered this housing bubble

 

Interesting supposition. Why are they now trying to kill their creation?

 

 

When the overall credit/debt/asset bubble eventually bursts, as I am metaphysically certain it will, I'm quite sure that people won't be taking refuge in the comic book market.

 

Actually comics do best when the r/e and stock markets go down.

 

 

I find it more than a little amusing that every single collector on this Board, to a man, believes that they will be able to spot a turn in the market (if it ever comes, because apparently comic prices only go up) and get out before all the other poor schmucks (who also believe they will be able to get out, which makes it so funny). Were you guys all raised in Lake Wobegon, where all the children are "above average"?

 

A lot of the board members here are "above average" knowledgeable collectors.

[delekkerste]

Interesting supposition. Why are they now trying to kill their creation?

 

I can't take credit for it. All the major publications - NY Times, FT, WSJ, etc. noted as much as it was happening. It's pretty much mainstream accepted fact that the Fed chose to resuscitate the economy post-9/11 by engineering higher home prices by setting short-term rates at artificially low levels and turning a blind eye to the excesses of lenders. Now that it's gotten completely out of hand and threatens to destabilize the economy, they're trying to engineer a soft landing. The monetary authorities in the U.K. did more than that and flat-out warned the populace about the growing risks in the property market, which has been stagnating for months now and is now showing signs of following the Australian property market into the minus column.

 

 

Actually comics do best when the r/e and stock markets go down.

 

No. What you are referring to is new comic sales, not comic book prices, the theory (or urban legend, perhaps) being that people take solace in reading comics during hard times. I'm not sure if this was ever true to a statistically significant degree and I certainly don't believe it would still hold true in today's digital society where comics have been relegated to its small niche in the U.S. market.

 

Anyway, que sera sera, whatever will be, will be. Let's see how things shake out.

[Norrin_Radd]

Actually comics do best when the r/e and stock markets go down.

 

No. What you are referring to is new comic sales, not comic book prices, the theory (or urban legend, perhaps) being that people take solace in reading comics during hard times. I'm not sure if this was ever true to a statistically significant degree and I certainly don't believe it would still hold true in today's digital society where comics have been relegated to its small niche in the U.S. market.

 

Anyway, que sera sera, whatever will be, will be. Let's see how things shake out.

 

No. Each spike in back issue values has occured when the stock market hit the skids (1970's, late 1980's, early 2000's) and people are looking for "alternative investments".

 

Prices might be cooling off now because people are putting more money back into the stock market.

[drbanner]

three years ago Gene was telling us all that the great fear was deflation, and that that surely doesn't appear to be happening either.

 

Uh, don't you remember the great deflation scare circa 2002, with Fed Governor Ben Bernanke (Greenspan's probable successor) talking about dumping money from black helicopters if need be? If the Fed hadn't engineered this housing bubble then, we would surely have descended into the depths...

 

Yeah, I'm referring to the great deflation fear of 2002, which didn't actually happen as we were warned!

 

Anyhow, this is a great example of why it's not really a good idea to forecast the future assuming the baseline conditions of the present will remain constant - you never know what changes will be made "on the fly" (...the Fed engineered this housing bubble...) to address problems.

[Silver Surfer]

There may be a day soon when the market takes a dip and small time collectors bail at a sizeable discount but these will simply be scooped up by long-term collectors and dealers and the cycle will start all over again. Like anything else if your in for the short term and aggressively pay for items you want, your putting yourself at risk. I respect the ability of seasoned collectors like Sfilosa to be patient and source out good deals while fighting off the natural collecting urge to complete runs. He obviously spends a good deal of money on comics but seems to purchase wisely.

[tth2]

Enough talk about the great crash already! If it happens, it happens. Perhaps Gene and JC are right that it will happen, and if they keep saying it for enough years, it`s bound to happen one of these days. After all, you can get into Cooperstown for getting a hit in 30% of your at bats. Gene IS correct that once prices start collapsing, a lot of the brave talk about picking up the new "bargains" will evaporate quickly.

 

However, since Gene has stated that he he predicted that the Nasdaq would plunge all the way back into the 1000s, I`d like his prediction on the public record as to how much the comic market will decline. We can pick from any number of measurement methods (Guide, GPA, etc.), and we can pick from any benchmark (a particular comic in a particular grade, an index made up of some key GA, SA and BA issues, etc.). I`ll even make it easy to establish a floor by stating for the record that no matter how bad it gets, I will be willing to buy the Church Action #1 and the Allentown Detective #27 for $100,000 each.

[drbanner]

We can pick from any number of measurement methods (Guide, GPA, etc.), and we can pick from any benchmark (a particular comic in a particular grade, an index made up of some key GA, SA and BA issues, etc.).

 

Here's a graphical look at how 9.4 non-key, later silver age Spideys have fared since GPA started keeping records. Would be interesting to compile and index and track it over time...possibly develop several indices (early silver, key, non-key, bronze, dc, etc.,.)...

 

[delekkerste]

No. Each spike in back issue values has occured when the stock market hit the skids (1970's, late 1980's, early 2000's) and people are looking for "alternative investments".

 

Prices might be cooling off now because people are putting more money back into the stock market.

 

I do not believe there is a major cause-and-effect relationship going on here, especially since the timing is somewhat off. The stock market bottomed in 1974 and was up for the rest of the decade. The '87 crash bottomed rapidly and new highs were made a year later (did all the comic value gains take place in that very brief downturn?) The 2000s saw a big swoon in the stock market, true, but we also saw CGC catch fire then (plus, real estate took off on a rampage as well).

 

The stock and real estate markets swooned in the early 1990s - did we see a huge spike in comic values then? Also, most of the 1990s saw a rampaging bull market across all asset classes. Despite the bankruptcy of Marvel and the crash in new comic sales, I don't recall there being a sharp downturn in back issue or original art prices. No matter what the OS guide says, I'm sure all of us would have liked to buy at 1991, 1993 or 1995 prices in 2000.